Hypertension Research Productivity from Saudi Arabia: A Scientometric Analysis for the Last Two Decades (2001-2020)

Abstract

Background: Hypertension (HTN) is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases and important global morbidity and mortality, along with other prevalent cardiovascular risk factors. Nonetheless, there has been little data on publication trends and performance evaluation from the Middle East region, including from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Objective: This study analysed KSA’s hypertension-related research output over the last two decades (2001-2020). Methods: The Web of Science (WoS) platform was primarily used to extract HTN-related data, and then scientometric analysis was done utilizing the "R-Bibliometrix' package. An extensive array of indicators was studied to determine the quality and quantity of HTN-related publications from KSA. Results: A total of 3129 research publications from 1274 sources were extracted using WoS over 20 years (2001-2020). Most of the documents (2617) were articles. After 2012, there was a substantial increase in research articles, which peaked in 2020. Among 21343 total authors from 131 countries, two authors had > 40 publications and five had > 2500 total citations. King Saud University (KSU) was the major contributing affiliation, followed by King Abdulaziz University (KAU). Saudi Medical Journal (SMJ) was the leading and most consistent source, while Hypertension, blood pressure, and Saudi Arabia were the most frequently used keywords. Conclusion: Our study provides an in-depth overview of hypertension-related research productivity from KSA. Some characteristic trends were observed regarding contributions by top authors, productivity, impact, international collaborations, and organizational affiliations. Related stakeholders can find the study findings very useful in precisely interpreting trends and performance of hypertension-related regional work.